INITIALIZE
The INITIALIZE
instruction initializes program variables with NULL or
default values.
Syntax
INITIALIZE target [,...]
{
TO NULL
|
LIKE {table.*|table.column}
}
- target is the name of the variable to be initialized.
- table.column can be any column reference defined in the database schema files.
Usage
The INITIALIZE
instruction
assigns NULL
or default values to variables.
The argument of the INITIALIZE
instruction can be a simple variable, a record
(with .*
notation), a record member, a range of record members specified with the
THRU
keyword, an array or an array
element.
The TO NULL
clause initializes the variable to NULL
.
When initializing a static
array TO NULL
, all elements will be initialized to
null. When initializing a dynamic array TO NULL
,
all elements will be removed (i.e. the dynamic array is cleared).
The LIKE
clause initializes the variable to the default value defined in the
database schema validation file. This clause works
only by specifying the table.column schema entry corresponding to the
variable.
RECORD
, you
can use the star to reference all
members:INITIALIZE record.* LIKE table.*
You cannot initialize variables defined with a complex data type (like TEXT
or BYTE
) to a non-NULL value.
Example
SCHEMA stores
MAIN
DEFINE cr RECORD LIKE customer.*
DEFINE a1 ARRAY[100] OF INTEGER
INITIALIZE cr.cust_name TO NULL
INITIALIZE cr.cust_name THRU cr.cust_address TO NULL
INITIALIZE cr.* LIKE customer.*
INITIALIZE a1 TO NULL
INITIALIZE a1[10] TO NULL
END MAIN